For Thanksgiving weekend, how about some apricot pumpkin bread, delicious for breakfast, brunch, snacks and tea sandwiches. This recipe is courtesy of B & R Farms, apricot growers who sell their delicious products at California farmers markets and to wholesalers. For more recipes, visit brfarms.com.

APRICOT PUMPKIN BREAD
Ingredients

- 1 large egg
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 cup canned pumpkin
- 1/2 cup salad oil (we like olive oil)
- 1/2 cup orange juice
- 2 cups flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoons each: baking powder, ground cinnamon, ground cloves, ground nutmeg, ground ginger
- 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
- 1 cup chopped dried apricots

B & R Farms apricots drying in the California
sun. Photo by Shannon Grissom, courtesy
B & R Farms.

Thank goodness the growing demand for sophisticated cookie platters gave birth to Cookie Panache, because the cookies are simply wonderful. In a world where the cost of labor and ingredients to bake one’s own butter cookies is almost as much as buying the finest, Cookie Panache is a real find. Crafting twists on favorites that add layers of flavor, these cookies and their biscotti siblings have most definitely earned their panache.

Cookie Panache answers the ever-hanging question of what to give for personal and corporate holiday gifts, hostess gifts and thank-you gifts for loving relatives who treat you to Thanksgiving, and Christmas and Chanukah memories.*

*Anyone who celebrates anything else: Add it here!

So, what are you waiting for? You know you want to dig in and find out more about the Dulce de Leche Cookie (a super sandwich), Triple Chocolate Bites (worth every calorie), Mojito Lime (a cocktail in a glass), Dutch Granny (we’ve adopted her) and the rest of the melodious cookie chorus, including impeccable biscotti.

Biscotti with panache. Photo by Evan Dempsey | THE NIBBLE.

We’re always testing food at THE NIBBLE; and with the warm weather we were having yesterday, a member of our team picked up both Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts iced coffees. At Dunkin’ Donuts, she was tempted by the fall donut display and picked up a sampling:

What about a lowfat muffin? Now there’s the:

Our fall favorites at Dunkin’ Donuts: The glazed
Pumpkin Donut at left, with pumpkin-colored
dough inside and the colorful Fall Munchkins.
At top, Pumpkin Muffin. At right, Low Fat
Caramel Apple Muffin. Photo by Evan Dempsey
| THE NIBBLE.

In terms of the iced coffee: Starbucks won ($3.05 compared to $2.82, representing NYC prices with tax).

It’s National Vanilla Cupcake Day. Invite friends over tonight for TV and a bake-along. Here’s a recipe for a yummy vanilla cupcake with cream cheese frosting.

The name “cupcake” is derived from the teacup. Before the advent of muffin tins, where they are baked with a paper or foil liner, cupcakes were often baked in individual tea cups (as well as ramekins). They are frosted and often decorated with sprinkles, candies, rosettes, coconut and other toppings. In recent years, cupcakes have moved beyond children’s party fare and have become popular with pastry chefs and consumers as sophisticated alternatives to large cakes at weddings and other celebrations, where cupcake “trees” stack the cupcakes in the shape of a large, tiered cake.

Happiness is a vanilla cupcake. Photo by Ben Phillips | IST.

Back in the 17th century, sugar was costly and shortbread was considered an expensive luxury, a treat reserved for special celebrations, Christmas and New Year’s celebrations. Imagine how over-the-top-indulgent those party-goers would think us if they had these dipped shortbread fingers!

We thank the folks at Walkers Shortbread for this festive yet easy recipe. Serve it for dessert with ice cream or with coffee and tea when guests stop by during the holiday season.

Ingredients

Dip shortbread fingers: It’s easy, fun—and impressive! Photo courtesy Walker’s Shortbread.

Preparation
1. Microwave chocolate in medium microwavable bowl on HIGH for 2 minutes. Stir until chocolate is melted and smooth.
2. Dip shortbread fingers into the melted chocolate. Immediately roll in chopped nuts, coconut, mini-chocolate chips, slivered almonds, etc.
3. Or place plain dipped chocolate shortbread onto waxed paper and let cool. Then drizzle with contrasting chocolate. Serves 4.

There are many more recipes available at www.walkersus.com. Enjoy!

Say you like to snack on cookies. And chips. And pretzels. And chocolate. But you can’t just sit down with bags of all three. What’s a girl to do?

If you’re Sara Snacker (legally, Sara Leand), your entrepreneurial journey began in college, where you built and ran a snack company out of your college dorm room, selling cookies and treats across the campus as well as to local merchants. She had to put the business on hold when it started taking too much time away from her studies (and her roommate kept eating all the supplies—oink, but who can blame her).

After more than a dozen years in the entertainment industry as a television agent and producer (she executive-produced shows for E!, Lifetime and TLC), Ms. Snacker, now a wife and mother, is back in the sweet snacks business. Her first product (more to come in a few weeks) is the thing to grab if you can’t choose among shortbread, potato chips and pretzels and chocolate.

A buttery, crumbly cookie is packed with pieces of crunchy chips and pretzels, then dipped in your choice of white or dark chocolate. That’s the Chip n’ Etzel. (Or is that the Cookie Chip n’ Choc n’ Etzel? We’re not sure, but Chip n’ Etzel, though it sounds different, hits only two of the four snack foods.) It’s a bit sweet, a bit crunchy, and a teeny bit salty.

The Chip n’ Etzel combines four favorite
snacks in one. Photo by Hannah Kaminsky | THE NIBBLE.

Whatever it is, it’s a soft and lovely treat that’s perfect with coffee, tea, cocoa or a glass of milk. Or nothing at all.

Fall is the time to bake up a pumpkin storm, so let’s add to the list with a delicious pumpkin cupcake with pumpkin cheesecake (cream cheese) frosting.

Created by cupcake blogger Stefani Pollack, the cupcakes are made with healthier graham flour and bits of graham crackers, yielding a far more rich-tasting, graham-y cake with a muffin-like texture—no delicate little cup of fluff.

Holiday flavors: graham flour (used to make
graham crackers) and pumpkin cheesecake
frosting. Photo courtesy Stefani Pollack |
Cupcake Project.

The difference between a good cookie or cake and a great one generally isn’t a “secret ingredient.” The secret is using the best basic ingredients: top-grade chocolate or cocoa, fresh organic eggs, artisan flour, real Madagascar (Bourbon) vanilla and fresh-ground spices—not pre-ground ones that have been sitting on the shelf for months (or years!) Try the best ingredients with your favorite recipe and see if they make a big impact. As tough as it is to “waste food,” don’t use old ingredients—toss old spices, cocoa and baking chocolate and don’t try to use up old butter in cake or cookies. Even if the carton says that the eggs are in still in the window of usability, the fresher they are, the better they bake up. When you factor in your labor and the cost of all ingredients, using the best and the freshest is worth it.

Chocolate cookies with chocolate crème or
caramel filling, enrobed in chocolate.
Dangerously addictive. Photo by Hannah
Kaminsky | THE NIBBLE.

We recently received an invitation to meet Gail Simmons, Special Projects Manager with Food & Wine Magazine who gained national (international? interplanetary?) visibility as a judge on our favorite TV food show, “Top Chef.” She was the celebrity guest at a debut party for Pepperidge Farm’s Tam Tam cookies—the top-selling cookie in Australia, now available in the U.S., and apparently a favorite of Gail’s. You can find them exclusively at Target stores from October through March (when they can be shipped in cool comfort without hot containers melting the chocolate).

If you like Kit Kat and Twix bars, these are bigger, plumper, more sumptuous versions. Crisp chocolate cookie layers are filled with chocolate crème or richer caramel, then enrobed in even richer chocolate.

Tim Tam cookies were named after the 1958 Kentucky Derby winner. The more voluptuous Caramel Tim Tams outshine their Chocolate Creme sisters, but if we had never met Caramel, we’d have been happy taking Chocolate Crème home. The milk chocolate enrobing the cookie is very sweet—eat more than two at a time and you’ll be sorry. So in that way, the cookies have a beneficial, self-limiting feature. (We didn’t have a chance to try the dark chocolate versions.)

Tim Tam Trivia:

Now, some of you have heard about the upcoming FTC “blogger disclosure law,” actually part of the new FTC Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising, that is scheduled to go into effect on December 1st. Among other things, it requires those who endorse products in the media, including blogs and social media, to disclose if they have received the products for free, work for the company, are an MD, Phd or other “Dr.” (if they call upon their expertise as a doctor), etc. At THE NIBBLE, we’re already anticipating using disclosures like, “We received these four flavors for free, and bought these 6 flavors at our local supermarket.” (THE NIBBLE gets free samples, but we spend far more buying products plus the ancillary products needed to cook, bake and otherwise prepare many of the free samples.)

In the case of Tim Tam: We got them for free but enjoyed them so much, we would gladly have paid for them and certainly will go out and pay for the dark chocolate versions. These are not artisan baked goods, but they are one heck of an addiction as well as a fix.

We love pumpkin cheesecake: So many recipes, so little time! This recipe is on the lighter side—pumpkin mousse—which makes it a better option after a heavy dinner. Think ahead to Thanksgiving, but try it out for Halloween.

The recipe was created by Andrea Watman, Creative Director at Zabar’s in New York City. Another twist is the gingersnap cookie crust, which brings even more holiday flavor into the recipe.

Pumpkin mousse cheesecake is lighter than other recipes.